


Applied 21st Century Fashion

by dearzoemurphy



Series: Advanced Creative Writing and Editing [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, Fluff, Mid-Canon, Mid-season 5, includes a night stroll in the park as well as childish shenanigans, it's all about the PINING, original characters are just functional like Britta's manager and a random cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24164608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy
Summary: Jeff comes to see Britta at The Vatican one night on which she happens to be wearing one of his jackets.AU kind of where the two of them have always been best friends and they're essentially cohabiting but refuse to admit any secret feelings they might have.
Relationships: Britta Perry & Jeff Winger, Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Series: Advanced Creative Writing and Editing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743970
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Applied 21st Century Fashion

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first of my writing desk scraps series, as this is a rather long scene that I ended up cutting from a longer project for clarity/brevity. I didn't want 2000 words to go to waste, so here we are! this isn't really edited and the canon this takes place in is not super established, but regardless, I hope you all enjoy!

One chilly night when Britta was running late for her shift at The Vatican, she blindly grabbed a jacket out of her coat closet and rushed out without a second thought. She didn’t realize that it was one of Jeff’s until after she put it on as she was walking from her car to the bar. 

_ “Of course, just my luck,”  _ she thought contemptuously, sighing and rolling up the sleeves so that they wouldn’t drag down past her fingertips. She went into work and clocked in, sneaking past her manager, an older woman who went by Red, and directly over to the first group of customers she saw.

Red gave her a suspicious glance when she was filing the first round of drink orders. Britta tried to keep her head down to avoid a confrontation, but failed to be inconspicuous. The manager made her way over to the blonde, who was searching for an excuse for her tardiness.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Is that your boyfriend’s jacket?” the older woman asked from across the bar.

“Excuse me?” Britta asked, confused.

“Your jacket. Is it from that friend of yours, John?” 

She ignored the fact that Red probably meant to say Jeff. “What does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t. It just looks ridiculous on you,” the manager said with a shrug, moving along.

Britta frowned, mildly annoyed. She turned around to distribute the drinks she’d finished making. While doing so, she saw a familiar face walking through the door. She locked eyes with him and the two exchanged a smile.

“You want the usual?” she asked.

“You know it. Did you steal my jacket?” Jeff replied, eyeing her with amused contempt.

Britta huffed as she turned around to get down a glass for his scotch. “I didn’t steal it, you left it last time you were at my place! And I accidentally grabbed it as I was running out the door. Thought it was mine,” she explained. She slid a drink across the bar towards him.

He laughed and caught the scotch, picking it up to take a healthy swig. “It looks good on you. The way it just hangs off your body, how you keep having to push the sleeves up despite them being rolled up already…”

His friend glared at him. “Watch it. You’re already on thin ice. My phone died today because I grabbed the charger for yours instead of mine when I was heading out this morning!”

“Sounds like a whole lot of your problem,” Jeff said nonchalantly.

“Oh, I’ll make it your problem, bucko,” Britta threatened.

“Is calling me bucko supposed to be intimidating?”

“Is leaving your stuff all over my place supposed to be-”

“Perry! Get back to work! You can flirt when you’re off the clock,” Red called across the bar.

The blonde glanced downward sheepishly. “Sorry, my bad,” she called back. She gave one last murderous glare to Jeff before moving onto the customers next to him. 

\---

A few of Jeff’s professor friends came to have a drink with him, but he stayed a while after they left to the end of Britta’s shift.

“You really didn’t have to stay the whole time,” she emphasized as they were leaving the establishment.

“No, I wanted to. The couple next to me were absolutely fascinating,” he insisted.

“How so?”

“They operate a dog salon. Make their own line of shampoos, have an artisan craft them the finest horse hair brushes… they were positively insane,” Jeff explained.

Britta laughed. “I guess even dog care can be gentrified.”

The pair took a left out of the bar and started instinctively strolling towards a park they liked to visit on nights like these. Jeff offered a bent arm that Britta readily linked with hers as their steps slowly became in sync.

“How were classes today?” she asked.

“Oh, you know, the usual. The jackasses in my third period refuse to stop pulling out quotes from my firm’s ad campaign to use against me,” he said, appearing visibly annoyed.

“That’s very lawyerly of them,” Britta said with a smirk.

Her friend gave a frustrated smirk back. “It is. I’m regretting ever taking the superhero angle, though,” he said.

They reached the park’s winding path, lit dimly by old lamp posts placed every few yards along it. The greenspace it surrounded was usually overflowing with families and bored college kids, but was desolate at this time of night. The flora and fauna of the daytime was hidden away by the darkness, leaving only the chirping of crickets and suggestion of flowers running along the sides of the trail. The friends walked in comfortable silence for a while, Britta leaning in closer to Jeff’s side when she felt a chill coming along. The oversized jacket was so gaping that the wind could rush right through her sleeves and around her torso.

Jeff took notice of her condition about a quarter of the way into the trail. “Chilly?” he asked, glancing down at her with a humorous glint in his eye.

“Somewhat,” she replied. 

“Here, this might help,” he offered, unhooking his arm and reaching down to zip the jacket up. He stifled a laugh at the sight of Britta.

“What?” she asked with a pout.

“It’s so large that your legs look like toothpicks,” Jeff elaborated, chuckling.

She wound back and punched him in the arm as hard as she could. “This is all your fault, you don’t have the right to laugh!”

“Oh Britta, I think I do. And is that all you’ve got?” he asked, raising an eyebrow to egg her on.

The blonde scoffed. “Bold of you to assume you can goad me into competition,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her.

Jeff gave a broad grin, moving over while walking to place his arm around Britta’s shoulders. “I’m not assuming anything. I  _ know  _ that I can goad you into competition,” he replied. 

“You want me to punch you again?” she asked with equal parts humor and annoyance.

“You know I’m into that,” her friend replied flirtatiously.

Britta responded by giving a look of determination and slamming all of her body weight into Jeff’s side.

“Oh ho ho, so that’s how we’re doing this?” he asked, smiling down on her as he shoved her back, using the arm that had been around her shoulders.

The shove caused Britta to stumble to the side of the path, making him snicker. “What the hell was your little ‘oh ho ho’ though?” she asked, running the short distance to shove him back.

This caught Jeff off guard, causing him to stumble on the edge of the path. His heel caught on a stray rock, bringing him crashing down to the ground.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Britta rushed over, suddenly concerned. When she reached her friend, he was rubbing his head.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine. Hit something on the way down though,” he replied, sitting up.

She bought it. “I’m so sorry, is there- Jeff!” she yelped. The brunet gave her a devilish grin as he grabbed the hem of her jacket and tugged her down to meet the ground as well. She landed squarely on top of him, becoming an accidental tangle of limbs.

Thinking quickly, Britta glanced to her right as she was going down and noticed that the edge of the path sloped off into a short hill.

“Damn, I guess you win this one…” she said.

“Wow, that’s rather uncharacteristic of you to…oh. Shit,” he started. Britta gave a wicked grin as she latched onto the sides of his jacket and began the motion of rolling down the hill. She pulled him along with her and the pair went tumbling down the grassy slope, becoming more tangled together with each roll. When they reached the bottom, Britta was once again on top of Jeff, their faces millimeters apart. They spent a moment looking at each other before bursting out into hysterical laughter.

“Okay, I think we both lost this one,” he said with a laugh.

“Did we really, though?” Britta asked, moving her hands up on top of Jeff’s chest. She placed her head on top of her hands and eyed him coyly.

Jeff flashed a look of extreme concern. “You don’t have any other tricks up your sleeve, do you?”

His friend chuckled. “No. You just got grass stains on two of your jackets,” she said, tugging on the collar of the one she was wearing for emphasis.

“You son of a bitch! I’m never letting you take my clothes ever again,” Jeff grumbled.

“Don’t leave your clothes at my place then! I swear, I have an entire Winger drawer at this point,” Britta retorted.

Jeff was about to reply with a rebuttal, but was interrupted by a blinding light being cast down upon them. 

“Hey! Who’s there?” an unknown voice called out as the light grew closer and brighter. 

“Oh shit…” Britta grumbled, pulling herself off of Jeff and extending a hand to help him up. The pair squinted into the light until the person carrying it was close enough for them to see that it was a cop. 

“You’re a little older than the folks I catch around here. Usually kids trying to hook up, y’know?” the cop said. He was clearly older and shorter than both Jeff and Britta, and spoke with a slight Southern twang. 

“Ah, sorry, we were taking a night stroll on the path up there and slipped and fell down here,” Jeff said quickly. 

“No problem, just had to make sure there was no hanky panky going on back here,” the cop said, “I would advise moving along and finding your way back home and into your bed before anyone else comes along,” he added, winking at Jeff. 

He felt his cheeks heat up and became instantly grateful for the cover of the dark. “Of course, officer. Will do.” 

Jeff smiled courteously while Britta stared the officer down with a look that could probably kill. Jeff took her hand and began leading her back in the direction of the bar in one swift motion.

They walked the majority of the way back in complete silence until Britta decided they were far enough away from the scene. 

“Okay, what the hell happened back there?! We weren’t doing anything wrong!” she exclaimed. 

“To be fair to the cop, we were lying down in a shadowy part of the park at night with you on top of me,” Jeff pointed out. 

This observation caused another stretch of quiet, each person not sure what to say to the other. 

“Would you mind if I crashed at your place tonight? I didn’t realize how late it was and I don’t know if I could drive 20 minutes right now,” Jeff asked, breaking the silence once they reached the bar parking lot.

“Yeah, totally. I think the pillows and blankets from this weekend are still set up,” she replied, letting go of his hand to fish her car keys out of a jacket pocket. 

He smiled at her. “Thanks. By the way, that still looks ridiculous on you,” he said with a laugh. 

Britta scowled. “I’m sure you’ll still be laughing when I make you sleep out in the hallway.”

“You know you could never do that to me, Perry,” Jeff said, giving his best sad puppy face. 

His friend snorted. “I will make you sleep out there for real if you keep looking at me like that. You can’t do the look as well as Annie does”

“Noted. I’ll ask her for pointers at the next committee meeting,” he said, smirking across the parking lot at Britta as he unlocked his car.

She huffed and shook her head. “See you at home,” she called back, swinging into her car.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, please leaves any comments/opinions/critiques/etc. in the comments down below! also, let me know if you want to see more of these. I have a small number of scenes like this and little ficlets that didn't end up going anywhere that I'll post if there's interest.


End file.
